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11 - AOÛ 02 - Pat Brown (Jim Bohannon)

Pat
Brown interviewée par Jim Bohannon

Westwood One radio - 02.08.2011

L'interview (1re partie) commence après la première minute

transcrit par Sasha

Jim Bohannon : Hello there and good
evening and welcome to the Jim Bohannon show from Westwood One Radio.
We find that Pat Brown is making a return visit to talk about her
latest book; the different slide is that you may have trouble buying
it. It’s an ebook called Profile of the Disappearance of
Madeleine McCann. Recently you could buy it from amazon.com but,
er, no more. We understand that the book is available from Barnes &
Noble online, with their initials BN.com for their Nook, enook
reader. Pat Brown, er, two stories who I guess...number one: The
story of Madeleine McCann. And number two: the story of you and er,
and er amazon. Er look, for those, let’s just start at the
beginning, what is the Profile of the Disappearance of Madeleine
McCann all about, let’s assume the people here have forgotten who
exactly Madeleine McCann is.

Pat Brown : Right, er, Madeleine McCann
was a little three year old girl who was on vacation with her
parents, erm, Gerry and Kate McCann and their friends, seven of them,
and there were also the brother and sister who were two years old and
er, the McCanns and friends had a habit of leaving the children
unattended in their vacation apartments while they went over to the
bar restaurant for a few hours every evening and, the last evening,
Madeleine disappeared and she has not been seen since, it’s been
four years now and no one knows what happened to Madeleine.

JB : now you put together er, an ebook,
a profile of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. Before we get
into all that you have put forward, deposit about the disappearance,
what happened with Amazon?

PB : Well, what happened was... there’s
a kind of controversy going on concerning the McCanns over the four
years, er the controversy is: Did the McCanns have anything to do
with the disappearance of their daughter or was the child abducted by
some predator or child sex ring or somebody who wanted a little
child ? Er, there’s two camps over this and there are a lot of
suspicious circumstances, an abduction was never proved to have
happened, so the McCanns became suspects in Portugal, what is called arguidos, and then they left Portugal and since then they’ve been
looking for their daughter, they, they, they established a fund to
search for their daughter and this was all going quite well, er but
when people started speaking up saying, you know, some of us actually
think that the parents might be involved, they were shut down because
the McCanns hired Carter Ruck, which is like the biggest libel
solicitors in, I don’t...maybe the whole world, but certainly in
Britain, and they would sort of stick this law firm on anybody who
said, hey you know, I question whether they could be involved.

They
sued the detective on the case when he put his book out and got an
injunction to get it off the market and so people have stopped
speaking out whether, you know, about their opinions because they’re
afraid of Cater Ruck, they’re going to get sued and so the media
has no longer said anything negative about the McCanns, they
never...they question nothing any more er, and so Kate just put out
her book called ‘Madeleine’ and after I read her book I decided I
would do what people wanted me to and put out a profile of the
disappearance of Madeleine McCann and, put out a theory of what I
think happened based on the evidence that exists. And I did so and
about five weeks after I put it up on Amazon it vanished and it
vanished off of amazon.com and amazon.co.uk, that’s the British
one, and of, out of Germay as well. So it vanished everywhere and
people said, what happened to your, your, your er profile, your book?
And so I wrote to Amazon and said what happened? Where’d it go? And
they said they took it off for legal conflicts and I said well what
legal conflicts are you talking about, and they said, well we need
you to change the title and all the contents. [both laugh]

JB : Otherwise it’s just what we were
looking for.

PB : : Exactly and so, okay, er do you
want to explain this a little further? And then they sent me the letter
that said they had been received a er letter from Carter Ruck, the
solicitors of Gerry and Kat McCann, who said I had libelled their
clients and therefore until we worked it out, the McCanns and I, and
agreed that the book was not libellous they were no longer going to
sell it. So that’s when it disappeared off of the market.

JB : Wow!

PB : : yeah! That’s rather interesting.

Jim Bohannon: You know, I was trying to
think of another instance of something similar to this and I’m at a
loss, I er, I don’t really know of anything quite like this.

PB : Yeah, well I think this is kind of
a new problem with the sub publishing world, now I have two other books on the market
published through...the last one came through Hyperion Voice and when
I wrote that one which is called the Profile of My Life Hunting
Serial Killers and Psychopaths, came out in 2010, I did a lot of
cases in that book and before they published it, their lawyers went
through it with a fine toothcomb, they made me turn over all my files
so that they made sure that the book was acceptable and couldn’t
risk...everybody can be sued over it... so when Amazon saw that they
already had Hyperion Voice saying it’s an okay book because our
lawyers have already been through it, besides, you’re not going to
get sued, we will. But with self publishing, where’s the gate
keeper? So Amazon’s like ha, you know, your not, nobody’s looked
over this book, there’s no publisher except you so quite frankly
we’re running a business and we don’t want to take a chance with
Carter Ruck. So it’s kinda funny people say when Cater Ruck comes
after you, you’ve been ‘Carter-Rucked.’

JB : Interesting, so in this day and
age what you’re essentially saying is that, that as we enter this
whole new brave new world of the non ‘Gate Keepers’ that if
you’ve got enough money and enough lawyers and a willingness to
throw your weight around that you can essentially shut down your
critics.

PB : Exactly and that’s what...that’s
what’s been happening with the McCanns, they’ve effectively shut
down anybody with an opinion that they do not like. And they don’t
like mine.

...Please be aware that the ebook Ms Brown is promoting is full of
misinformation, contradictions and an imagined scenario. Ms Brown has
a well known dislike of the McCanns, particularly Kate McCann, and
for the past four years has made regular inappropriate and acidic
comments about them on social networking sites.

PB : Well
that’s actually accurate. Sometimes you can’t disagree with
people who hate you. But yes, I have blogged for four years. I have a
blog called the Daily Profiler, it’s not very daily any more
because I’m too busy but it’s more a monthly profiler now but I
haven’t changed the name, er but I often talk about cases like I do
when I do television, I do commentary, and I analyse different cases
and I try to stick with: look at the evidence and here’s what I’m
thinking and I try to put it, I always say it’s a theory, this is
not fact, this is theory which is what all profiling is and it
doesn’t say anybody’s guilty of anything. Yes, I have been fairly
critical because from the very beginning there was something rather
peculiar about the story and of course it starts with leaving three
little children alone in an apartment unattended, which is called
child neglect, so it’s kind of hard to be nice about that in my
opinion.

PB : Well this is kinda funny because
on a very sad way, one of the reasons Kate McCann supposedly sues
people is because she says no one has the right to say Madeleine is
dead because that keeps people from looking for her, which sounds
like, you know, if you’re a mother you can sorta see where she’s
coming from. But the fact is, the chances of Madeleine being alive –
even if she didn’t die of an accident in the apartment which is
what the police believe and what I think the evidence lends to, er,
she would likely be dead because if she was abducted by somebody it
would be like a sex predator, a child sex predator and they usually
kill a child within an hour, and the concept that a child is going to
be targeted to go into a sex ring and be taken around the world is
not very likely, and on top of it the McCanns put together a campaign
which featured her... the eye defect that Madeleine has... which is
called a coloboma, which is, you know which is kind of a defect in
the eye, a dark line coming out of the pupil. They put that as part
of their publicity, well you know if I were a child kidnapper and I
had this kid with this very obvious defect I’d get rid of the child
very quickly because she could be identified so I ...

JB : Very easily...

PB : If she wasn’t dead, you’re
going to make her dead by doing that.

JB : Welcome back, this
is the Jim Bohannon show, we’re talking with Pat Brown, she’s the
founder of the Pat Brown profiling agency and for those who haven’t heard your previous
appearances on this and many other programs er what is it that you
do?

PB : Well er, my main job
is to do criminal profiling which I look at cold cases and I do crime
reconstruction and deter...try to determine what might have happened
and that’s what the police can use as a lead or to start looking in
a certain direction, er, to try and get a focus on a case er and of
course I do a lot of television which is commentary and not
profiling, but er, I enjoy that as well as a good educational route.

JB : I’m wondering
since er apparently a a lot of this er this focus is, is based in
Britain. We tend to think I guess of the British is almost just quote
us. Well, we have a common language and we have two free societies
but there are differences, significant differences, and I, I
understand that the libel laws maybe one area where there are
differences.

PB : Ooooh...extremely.
They’re extremely vicious right now in Britain which is why er
there’s been a lot...pretty much a shut down of a lot of the media,
especially in this case and I’ve had a lot of letters coming in
from, from er people living in er UK and they’re like, please do,
please speak out because we can’t speak out any longer in, in
Britain, it’s just not allowed and they’re very frustrated with
the fact they don’t have that freedom – I think there’s
something recently afoot where they’re trying to ease up on that
because they’re getting, it’s getting to be like a totalitarian
society where you can’t say anything, and while it’s true we may
be uncomfortable with what somebody says about us and certainly I
know because I’ve been on the receiving end of all kinds of
interesting commentary, and I, as long as it’s opinion I have to
live with it, I think its people’s right to speak with their
opinion but when you shut down a society and say you can longer say
anything that somebody doesn’t like you’ve got a problem.

JB : What do you put
forward in the Profile of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, what
er conclusions do you reach?

PB : Well erm, again it’s
a theory so I have to start with that so...

JB : And I understand
you’re not at all shy about pointing that out, it is all theory...

PB :...I have to point
that out ...and it really is er

JB : I mean you weren’t,
you weren’t shy about doing it before you [??] isn’t that true?

PB : Well, the point
being that it is a theory and it is my theory, er, it doesn’t mean
it’s a fact, it doesn’t mean it’s true, it doesn’t mean
that’s what happened, it’s a theory of what could have happened.
Er and one of the, the most important thing to be pointed out right
away is that there is no evidence of an abduction and that’s where
the whole thing started to go wrong in people’s minds that maybe
we’re not getting a straight story here, erm, right after Madeleine
went missing er, the...Kate and Gerry called over to England, well
actually Gerry did, and he told a number of relatives that Madeleine
had been abducted and somebody had jemmied the shutters of the
window, essentially crawling in and taking Madeleine away. Well, what
turned out, there was no evidence of anybody coming in that window.

JB : Hmmm...

PB : And when...and I’ve
always wondered you know with the McCanns said the police did a poor
job on this, they were lying about this, but when Kate wrote her book
she admitted there was no evidence of anybody coming through that
window.

PB : Well, now kind of
what they, what they’ve set up is everyday of the week they said
they locked the doors to that apartment – now wouldn’t you, if
you’re in an apartment, in a strange country and you have an
apartment that’s on a corner, there’s a road going right behind
it and there’s a carpark behind it...I don’t think you’d leave
the doors unlocked when you’re...well, it’s bad enough that you
leave three children alone so most of us wouldn’t do that either,
but would you leave your three children alone AND leave the doors
unlocked so that anybody could just come in?

JB : Don’t think so.

PB : We wouldn’t think
so, wellneither did the McCanns so for four days they locked the
doors. The fifth day comes along and they say they left the sliding
door open in the back so that somebody could go check on their
child.. children when they were busy, and that’s never been done
before. So suddenly on the, the last day supposedly someone else
checks on their children.. child.. and the door’s left open. So you
have to wonder is that really what happened or was the place really
locked because if it was locked down then Madeleine was not abducted,
something happened to her in the apartment in an accident that was
then covered up. Er, so you have to have a way for her to get out of
that apartment so you have to have an open door.

JB : What have the
authorities had to say? Obviously they have long since investigated
this adding for item.

PB : er yeah, Detective
Amaral believed...he was the one that believed strongly that
Madeleine McCann died in the apartment, they brought in dogs, er one
dog identified decomposition behind the sofa, which is where Amaral
believes Madeleine died, er the other dog found blood, these are
sniffer dogs so this is not something we can see, found blood in the
same location and so Amaral believed that Madeleine had an accident
while they were out at the, at the restaurant. He believes to this
day that they were responsible for what happened to their daughter
and that’s why he wrote the book which got ... you know...they sued
him for.

JB : Uhhmm...but they’re
not suing you?... yet.

PB : Not that I know of.

JB : Not that you know
of.

PB : I have not
received a cease and desist notice nor has anybody approached me on
that.

JB : Do you think that
you have had a chip on your shoulder er that you just had it in for
err...the McCanns...

PB : For the McCanns?

JB : Yeah, I mean that’s
the gist of this email which was piteously dropped on me.

PB : Right. Erm, I have a
thing for justice. I have a thing for the truth, and I, as a profiler
I’m very bugged by things when I say, wait a minute, something’s
fishy about this, something is ...something seems off here, it seems
like the truth is not coming out. I have spoken up very strongly in
certain crimes where I believe that we’re not getting the full
story, and this was one of them, and because of the... the McCanns
had a very high profile they did a lot of media er appearances, and
every time I saw them things rang wrong again. I’m thinking, why
are you saying that? Why are you doing that? So I think if they
hadn’t been in the media so much and I hadn’t been so aware of
what they were saying I wouldn’t have commented so often, so they
made themselves, you know, they put themselves out there and when you
do – just like me, I’m going to get people who have things to say
about me.

JB : Well, erm,
unfortunately I guess it sort of goes with the nature of your work
that if you don’t like Pat Brown; get in line.

PB : Yeah, well, pretty
much. Yeah.

JB : I mean, I mean,
there, there have to be just by the nature of what you have done er,
a lot of folks who don’t think kindly of you.

PB : Well, what will
happen is, is... when, when you speak out ...when you’re outspoken
and, and I’ve never been accused of not being outspoken ....

JB : That’s true

PB : Er, you know, there
are some people who go on television for example and talk about a
case and they’ll be very careful about it, well this could happen;
or that could happen; maybe she did; maybe she didn’t...and you
think: Well, what do you think? Well, when I talk about a case I’m
pretty blunt about what I think. Here’s what the evidence here is
and here’s what I think happened.